Dead To Me

by Anton Strout

  None of us were quite sure what to expect, but the decision was made to crash the gala—the smaller the team, the more unnoticed we would be. The Inspectre hand selected me, Connor, and several members of Shadower team for the mission. Since Jane wasn’t part of the D.E.A., she hadn’t been invited to our little party crash.

  Apparently, the location always changed for these events, but this time the bad guys had done things up in style by obtaining the Metropolitan Museum of Art as their venue. Never slaves to convention, the Surrealists had chosen to host the event as a “Come As Your Favorite Dead Celebrity” affair, and while we waited on line to enter, I immediately noticed several people sporting the curly-cue mustache of Salvador Dalí himself in their not-so-creative costumes.

  For my own costume, I had gone with one of my childhood idols. There had been two potential costumes, both from shows I had watched as repeats. First, there was the man who made the William Tell Overture popular among generations of kids, the Lone Ranger. The second was a folk hero from the old Mickey Mouse Club serials, none other than Zorro. Figuring they wouldn’t let me in with holsters and guns, I opted for Zorro. He had always struck me as more interesting anyway, less of a Goody Two-shoes than Tonto’s kemosabe. The fact that I didn’t really know how to use the plastic sword hanging from my belt didn’t make it seem any less cool to me.

  Most importantly, I had opted for the traditional black gloves of the Zorro outfit. Museums were full of potential danger where my powers were concerned, and although I was exhibiting some newfound control over my powers, touching any of these artifacts was likely to overload my powers and cripple my mind in a heartbeat. The energy off these ancient pieces—psychic imprints from people who handled the installations, the actual artists and crafters of the items, millions of tourists—I didn’t even want to think what could potentially happen to me.

  The man at the door checked my invitation and inspected my plastic sword before handing it back to me and waving us into the museum. There was something about being in a museum at night that was eerily intimidating. The absence of thousands of tourists had settled like a blanket over the Met, the quiet echoes of footfalls drove home its enormity. It reminded me of wandering the halls of my high school while waiting after hours on parent-teacher night. It almost held the same sense of doom, too.

  We found the bulk of the crowd gathered near the Temple of Dendur in the Egyptian part of the Sackler Wing. The members of Shadower did what they did best and immediately disappeared into the sea of people. Mood was everything to the Surrealists, it seemed. The room was lit with a haunting blue haze that hung over the temple like a faux Egyptian night sky would have. I thought for sure the event would have been set up where the work of the actual Surrealists was kept, in the Modern Art section of the museum, but the Egyptian wing trumped it in oddness and seemed as surreal a venue for tonight’s soirée as any.

  “Well, we certainly ain’t in Casablanca, kid,” Connor said, loving every moment of playing dress up as Humphrey Bogart. The clothes were pretty close to what Connor normally wore, and his impression, as usual, was painful to listen to.

  The rest of our team had also come with the entertainment motif in mind. The Inspectre had taken the daring route and come as Isadora Duncan, the deceased dancer who had passed away tragically when one of her trademark scarves got caught in the wheels of her car, snapping her neck. He was dressed in a long white gown with fake blood caked down the front, a womanly wig (made even more ridiculous given his bushy mustache), and a long tattered scarf with a hubcap hanging from the end of it. Even I was impressed at the lengths he had gone to.

  We split up and each of us set off in our own direction. For a “Dead Celeb” party, there was a suspicious lack of Elvis Presleys in the crowd, a fact that I blurted out to the nearest passerby. She was a woman in her twenties, possibly pretty but it was hard to tell because she was done up as a traditional Napoleon, complete with his famous hat and her hand tucked firmly into her vest.

  “Excuse me, but where’s the King?” I asked.

  “Wheech keeeng?” she asked with an outrageous French accent. She waved her free hand around the room. “Zere arrr two Hen-ree zee Eighths over zhere, a couple of Tuts up by zee temple…”

  “No, no,” I corrected her. “The King. Presley!”

  Napoleon laughed and slapped me on the shoulder.

  “Silly!” she said. “Zhees is a dead celebrity party!”

  Before I could further argue the point, she walked off to join a group who had come as the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

  A Marilyn Monroe holding a carnival mask on a stick sidled up to me, laughing.

  I turned and there was Jane dressed as a most impressive and stunningly attractive Marilyn Monroe, right down to the billowy white dress that had danced over an air grate to the delight of millions of men (and a few women, too, I suspected). Between the wig and the mask, I had hardly recognized her.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered, pulling her close so no one could hear.

  “Good to see you, too,” she said with just a touch of bitterness. She lowered the mask a tiny bit. “Jesus. You think because your precious Department didn’t invite me, I couldn’t get in here? I’m not wrapped up in this whole evil thing anymore. I came here looking for answers and to prove myself to you, Connor, and the Inspectre…hell, the whole damn Department.”

  I was going to argue, but I stopped myself. The truth was I was glad she was there. Jane had been getting screwed over by the Sectarians this whole time and she had every right to be here.

  She nodded toward the female Napoleon who had just walked away.

  “Flirting, are we?”

  “Yes,” I said, brandishing false pride. “And I do think the Emperor of France was quite taken by me.”

  “Oh really?” she said with a playful squeeze of my arm. “And what makes you think that?”

  “Well, I haven’t been thrown into exile yet, have I?”

  She groaned. “I’m going to check the crowd for any of the hardcore S.D.L. folk. I mean, everyone here is working for Darkness pretty much, but I want to make sure all the key players are present and accounted for. Try not to get exiled or married while I’m gone, okay?”

  She raised her mask back to her face. I watched the sway of her dress as she moved off into the crowd, and I pushed any thoughts of desire from my mind as I scoped out the room. There was a curious lack of museum staff present in the wing, but I guessed that the funds from the Sectarian Defense League and the Surrealist Underground combined had bought them a significant blind eye to tonight’s proceedings. I felt sick to my stomach. The D.E.A. could have never been able to swing an event like this financially. Hell, we probably couldn’t afford anything in the gift shop.

  After a quick circuit of the room, I spied Faisal by the temple entrance. He was talking to a group of men and women, every one of them dressed as Dalí. Faisal himself was dressed as Don Corleone (minus the added bulk) with his hair slicked back and colored gray.

  I made my way toward them, hoping to catch a part of their conversation if I could. Were this the movies, I would have arrived just in time to hear, “And now, gentlemen, allow me to reveal my secret plan, my evil scheme that will unleash my wrath upon the world.” Instead, when I got closer, I spent several minutes not understanding a damned thing Faisal was saying. He was doing a dead-on Godfather impression, mumbling his way through the conversation unintelligibly. His cronies nodded and laughed as if they understood every word, but I was pretty sure it was just a lot of ass kissing. I was frustrated, but I had to admit he was really quite good at Brando. Connor would be jealous.

  Eventually he excused himself and broke from the pack. As he stepped to the podium before the temple entrance and adjusted the microphone, the room quickly settled down. The costumed crowd made a strange montage awash in azure light and I wished someone would capture it in paint and add it to the museum’s collection. I could imagine it sell
ing next to copies of dogs playing poker and velvet Elvises.

  As the head of the Sectarians gazed out over the sea of people, he looked pleased.

  “Mmmdies nn’ gnnndlmn,” he started, then stopped. He reached in his mouth, produced two wads of cotton, and dropped them behind the podium. “Ahh, much better!”

  A light chuckle rose from the crowd. I looked around for the rest of my team but none of them were in sight. Faisal adjusted the mike once more and continued.

  “Ladies, and gentlemen,” he repeated, cotton free this time. “I’d like to thank you all for coming out tonight. I realize a lot of you would prefer to be sitting comfortably at home watching ritual sacrifices on HBO9, but I promise you…this will all be worth it. Tonight, la famiglia, I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

  Another round of laughter for Faisal and another round of not seeing my people in the crowd for me. Maybe costuming ourselves had been a bad idea. Shadower Division had disappeared entirely, which wasn’t a surprise given their specialty. It was just them doing their job well. Too well.

  I worked my way across the room, careful not to move too fast and thus attract attention. I stole a glance toward the temple. Faisal was clutching the sides of the podium and his face looked solemn as the last of the crowd’s laughter died.

  “Seriously, my brothers and sisters,” he said, “this has been a good year for Evil. We’ve achieved legitimacy through legislation, the Sectarian Defense League! A voice for the weary, downtrodden cultist to be heard in our government, and all it took was some hard work, the generous funding of our beloved hosts, the Salvador Breton Foundation, and a little spilt blood.”

  The applause was deafening.

  “Well, maybe more than a little spilt blood,” he continued. “But hey, you can’t make an omelet without slitting a few throats. Am I right?”

  The crowd erupted in laughter and once again I felt sick to my stomach. These were people who, despite the charm and charisma of their leader, relished the idea of sacrificing life in the name of their cause. Were I not terribly outnumbered, I would have done something stupid like rushing the podium.

  “Your funding,” Faisal said, “has made it possible to finally have a voice in the real world. No longer will we have to meet in secret, hiding our identities. The Mayor of this Big Rotten Apple—an apple ripe for picking—will soon be under our control.”

  This time there was an appreciative silence throughout the crowd as the weight of Faisal Bane’s words washed over them.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he continued, tapping his forehead. “How can we advance our cause, our most damnable work, now that we’ve got our foot in city hall’s door? Doesn’t overtaking the government cost money? Well, yes, quite frankly, it does. And tonight you will see what the fruits of your financial help, your seed money if you will, have bought us.”

  Faisal paused for dramatic effect and then grabbed something off the top of the podium. All eyes followed his hand as he slowly raised it overhead. The object was instantly familiar to me. I had seen hundreds of them in the hidden room at the back of Tome, Sweet Tome. In his hand was one of the clay pots—the same kind Tamara’s spirit had been delivered to the office in.

  “Ghostsniffing,” he said. There were triumph and pleasure in his voice. “This is our financial future, my friends. This is ectoplasmic gold, pure and simple. Sales from this substance will ensure not only our legislative future, but a substantial piece of the profit pie for all of you. For all of you investors, we’ve set up a mobile processing plant in the next room so you can see how the process works, and what your money’s going toward. There’s no sample like a fresh sample, and if you’re daring enough to try one—in moderation, of course—you’ll find they pack a certain…surreal…extra punch thanks to the very heightening power of your fish totem.”

  Applause exploded and I watched as Faisal smugly rode the wave of it. After the crowd had gone on for far too long, he gestured for them to settle down. “My fellow workers…let’s just call a spade a spade, shall we? My minions are busy in the next wing preparing those choice samples, but before we get to that, I’d like to bring up your leader, the head of the Salvador Breton Foundation himself. Here’s the man who made all of this possible. Get on up here!”

  The costume party was the perfect way to keep most of the Sectarians and members of the Surrealist Underground anonymous. But even dressed as a swashbuckling pirate—maybe Captain Jack Sparrow—there was no mistaking the imposing figure of Cyrus Mandalay as he swaggered on stage toward the podium. He shook Faisal’s hand vigorously.

  “Great to see so many of you in attendance,” he boomed out. “I’ve spoken to a lot of you individually tonight. I heard a lot of your concerns, and I know you haven’t seen me around much since the ‘incident’ at my bookstore, but rest assured things are going according to schedule. Thank you, Sectarian Defense League, for that. I’m sure I speak for us all when I say we’re looking forward more than ever to a lasting partnership with our Sectarian brethren…and sistren.”

  Sistren? I couldn’t listen to any more of this. Just seeing him made me livid. Somewhere in the crowd I knew Connor was beside himself with rage, probably being restrained by some of the Shadower guys. I needed to get out of this room, and I also needed to confirm the worst of my fears. There were only two exits from the room, and I pressed through the crowd toward the nearest one. I had a feeling that out of the “choice samples” of spirits that Faisal had picked for the demonstration, I knew at least one personally. Irene’s disappearance had been because she had felt something pulling at her spirit. I could only imagine it had been because of some arcane dog whistle tuned to a frequency that drew spirits into this trap. It was only a gut feeling that she was here, but it was a strong, nasty one. God help me if I was too late to do anything to help her or any of the other spirits selected for tonight’s Ghostsniffing demo.

  The kicking of much ass could wait until I found out if Irene was here. If I was right, they were trying to force her into a clay containment jar, and it would destroy her like it had Tamara. I couldn’t let that happen again. I wondered for a second where Jane was, but I wasn’t too worried for her. She could hold her own, what with having been all evil and stuff. It was Irene that was most likely helpless if she had become caught up in these machinations. And as Zorro always knew, when in doubt, go for the girl in distress.

  36

  There were several S.D.L. guards throughout the room, and although they looked silly in their hokey Renaissance Faire garb, I took no chances, cutting a wide arc around them heading toward one of the doors.

  As I closed on the doorway, the familiar scent of patchouli and cloves grew stronger in my nostrils. It was the same type of smell as the one Connor used to bind spirits with. My heart leapt in my chest, and by the time I actually stepped through the doorway itself, the air was sick with the smell. It was like being caught in a Dead Head’s hair.

  The room was mostly dark and its architecture was generic in style but classed up by Greek columns on either side of the door. In the half-light of the after-hours world, I could just make out the banners of heraldry hanging high overhead in tribute to the Met’s permanent collection of arms and armor. Four mounted knights were on display as the centerpiece of the room, and the walls were lined with glass cases full of ancient armor, pole arms, lances, swords, and shields. Just thinking about the accumulated history surrounding me made my body quiver.

  I was sure the majesty of such a display would have had even more of an impact on me if I wasn’t distracted by what was out of place in the room. At the far end, past the horsemen, several workers were operating a bulky mechanical contraption of some sort. It looked liked a cross between a Rube Goldberg device and one of those astronaut training gyroscopes, except this one had several wooden circles that twisted and turned around each other.

  Closer to me were dozens of quasicorporeal forms. They floated listlessly within a smoky haze rising out of an arran
gement of evenly placed casks along the west wall. I crept toward the haze quietly and luckily went unnoticed by the men at the far end of the room. Score one for dressing all in black!

  As I approached the casks, their purpose became readily apparent as the familiar smell of patchouli hit my nose—the casks were full of the same substance Connor had given me a vial of at the Odessa, the very material he used to contain and control ghosts. The fumes rising from them kept the spirits floating above them contained. The cloud twisted and swirled, and I caught glimpses of the translucent bodies contained within. A constant low chatter of weakened pleas of tortured souls tore at my ears. It didn’t take long to pick out the distinctive lilt of Irene’s voice as I listened carefully, but it broke my heart to hear it. I had been hoping beyond hope, and against my instincts, that Irene wouldn’t be mixed up in this.

  I stepped closer and suddenly Irene’s voice rushed at me with all the force of a subway car. Out of the mist, her face formed in the smoke. It looked drawn and pained, like that of someone who hadn’t slept for ages. Tears rolled down my face and soaked into the fabric of the Zorro mask.

  “Irene?” I whispered. “Can you hear me?”

  The form of her face nodded in response.

  “How did you know it was me…?” I asked. The lighting was poor, I was shrouded in black, and what little showed of my face was shadowed by the traditional Zorro hat.

  Her image grew more distinct in the mist and somehow she forced a smile.

  “I would always know you, Simon,” she said, and there was kindness in her voice. The barest definition of fingers formed and the wisps of smoke brushed at my face. “You have an energy, an aura that’s wholly yours. Everyone does.”